LETTERS: Time to step in over sixth form closure

We (Erewash Green Party) have written to Maggie Throup, Erewash MP, about the decision of Ormiston Ilkeston Enterprise Academy to close its sixth form. Our letter to her reads:

I am writing officially from Erewash Green Party and as a constituent to ask you Maggie Throup to request formally that Nicky Morgan intervenes in the decision by Ormiston Ilkeston Enterprise Academy to close its sixth form at the end of this academic year.

You may know that social media has reported this with very many students and interested parties showing a mixture of anger and extreme disappointment that their studies will be disrupted by the decision.

This is only part of a chain of events which shows that, in our view, at times the government’s favoured academy programme fails the young people it aims to serve.

We say since the Ormiston Trust entered Ilkeston we have seen a disastrous decline in standards, the closure of a much-loved neighbourhood school in Cotmanhay despite assurances that this would not happen, a failure to emerge from an OFSTED inadequate rating and now the ending of a sixth form programme which young people of Ilkeston need to further their education and to enable the transition to university to be well managed.

We hope that you will at least comment on this publicly and let us know your feelings.

The saga of Ormiston’s period in Ilkeston/Cotmanhay is well known to all local residents who are apparently expected meekly to await the next contentious decision and the next inadequate rating.

Did they really need to spend so much public money on the new building given that they are now removing post-16 provision?